A wide variety of mobile devices have reached the market in the past few years taking advantage of new technologies and standardizations. For example, many mobile phones come equipped with web browsers to allow users to perform such tasks as purchasing goods, checking on the status of deliveries, and booking travel arrangements. Mobile devices include any device capable of providing data processing and/or communication services to a user outside of the office. For example, mobile devices include, but are not limited to, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, laptops, pagers, and wireless email devices (e.g., Blackberry).
Over recent years, various applications have been developed for mobile devices, allowing users to performing increasingly more complicated tasks while away from their desks. A tradeoff exists between the size of mobile devices and the capabilities they provide. For example, large displays assist in displaying complex, detailed data; however, a large display would be cumbersome in a mobile device. Many mobile devices provide very small screens, with limited data entry capabilities, thereby making functionally robust or complex applications impractical.
With wider deployment of mobile devices and increased connectivity, interesting new fields for enterprise applications are being developed. In the past, enterprise applications typically have been provided as desktop applications within a well-defined corporate environment. However, with smaller, more powerful mobile devices and increased connectivity, it is more and more feasible to carry out business transactions on mobile devices. Thus, corporate backend data processing systems need to be accessed remotely with transactions initiated anywhere connectivity is available.
In the past, desktop applications in the corporate environment have taken advantage of the processing power and large display screens in providing sophisticated graphical user interfaces allowing users to view and enter large amounts of data efficiently. The requirements of mobile devices are substantially different to those of desktop systems, with power consumption and size becoming much more important than processing power, display sizes, and ease of data entry.
Mobile devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) typically have small screens, minimal processing power, little storage capacity, low bandwidth network connectivity, and limited data input capabilities. For example, many mobile phones have very small screens, capable of displaying only a few short lines of text. Also, mobile phones typically do not include a keyboard, requiring users to use cumbersome techniques to input textual data. One common mobile telephone data entry method assigns multiple letters to a single button, such as, “A,” “B,” and “C” to the button marked “1.” To enter an “A,” a user places the device into a text data entry mode, and presses the “1” button. To enter a “B,” the user presses the “1” button twice. Finally, to enter a “C,” the user presses the “1” button three times. Clearly, it is difficult and cumbersome to enter large amounts of data in this manner.
As discussed above, the movement from the desktop in the corporate environment to the mobile environment has significantly changed the platforms used for corporate applications. In the past, enterprise applications typically process large amounts of data and require large amounts of data entry. While this constitutes no problem on the desktop, it may be problematic when using mobile devices. The limiting factors mentioned above do not facilitate complex input and output on mobile devices.
Real-time access to enterprise data and applications for the mobile workforce, such as sales representatives or service technicians, is a crucial factor for enterprises. Today, many workflows, especially for employees on the road, are still paper-based, lacking in automated processing and backend integration. With the introduction and widespread use of lightweight, inexpensive mobile devices as well as the increased coverage of wireless data networks, mobile solutions have become desirable for broad usage in the mobile workforce.
As the mobility of the workforce increases, more and more corporate workflows will require migration to or at least support for mobile platforms. Because of the limitations of mobile devices, new paradigms for data input and presentation are needed to fully leverage the power and benefits of mobile devices.